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Arzeena Hamir | LUSH Valley
46 Plays7 days ago
In this episode we chat with Arzeena Hamir, a dedicated farmer, community leader, and advocate for local food systems.
Arzeena shares her journey from studying crop science and working internationally to settling into a rural community and owning an organic farm.
We dive into the challenges and nuances of small-scale farming and we discuss cooperatives, ecological practices, profitability, and the consumer obsession with perfect-looking produce.
To learn more go to: https://lushvalley.org/
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Note: File updated June 24, 2025 (there was a tech issue at the end, sorry - delete and re-download if it doesn't do it automatically).
Here's a summary of this interview:
Arzeena’s big food system wish: permanent policy-based support for local food procurement in public institutions.
She has a rich background in international agricultural development and now owns Amara Farm in BC.
Food security, to Arzeena, means consistent access to affordable, healthy food for all Canadians, regardless of location or season.
She runs a cooperative marketing initiative, helping five farms share resources, reduce costs, and access markets more effectively.
Arzeena sees cooperative farming as key to sustaining small farmers, offering shared infrastructure and collective marketing.
She believes scaling cooperatives should be driven by farmer needs, not just the drive for bigger operations.
Challenges in vegetable farming: balancing regenerative practices with the reality of labor-intensive costs and market pricing.
Arzeena encourages consumers to embrace “ugly” produce, focusing on flavour and nutrition over appearance.
She critiques the consumer preference for perfect-looking produce, calling for more support for local and organic farmers.
She sees a deep, physical, and spiritual connection to the land through locally grown food, highlighting the importance of knowing your farmer and the soil it grows in.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Aisle 42.
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome back to Aisle 42. In this episode, we chat with Arzina Hamir, a dedicated farmer, community leader, and advocate for local food systems.
From Science to Farming
00:00:16
Speaker
Arzina shares her journey from studying crop science and working internationally settling into a rural community and owning an organic farm. We dive into the challenges and nuances of small-scale farming, and we discuss cooperatives, ecological practices, profitability, and the consumer obsession with perfect-looking produce.
00:00:34
Speaker
Okay, let's get into it with Arzina from Lush Valley Food Action Society, because the future of food starts now. Arzina, we don't go very far back. Our friendship is new, but we found a lot of common ground when we did connect at a policy convention a couple of months ago. So I'm excited to have this conversation.
00:00:55
Speaker
And I'm going to kick things off with the
Vision for Government Support
00:00:57
Speaker
big question. And that is, what's one change in the food system that would excite you the most? Ooh, um, You know, I think if we could see permanent support for local food, like primary products, I think to me that would make a huge difference all around. And by permanent support, I mean, you know, right now we're seeing a really big ah surge in interest in locally grown everything because of the tariffs that are happening across the board, um across the the line.
00:01:31
Speaker
And we saw a similar surge during COVID. So farmers are not unused to this. But if there was any way to make this more permanent, because as soon as tariffs are lifted, farmers know that, you know, people will start to to choose differently.
00:01:47
Speaker
And by permanent, what I would love to see is actually within government policy, local procurement include food products. And so that when you have hospitals and schools and colleges and all of our public institutions purchasing that a minimum 30% of that low food purchase be from within British Columbia and hopefully within the the local food shed of that institution.
00:02:16
Speaker
I love it. You just nailed like three of my questions, but we're going to go deeper on all of those things. So I'm not worried, but you answered as I hoped and expected. And so I appreciate being able to have this conversation with you because I think it's important and it isn't just about food security on a high level or some sovereignty or some elbows out rah-rah.
00:02:37
Speaker
It's about an ecosystem that's better for everyone. And I think our Our communities need this type of conversation and they need this
Background and Education
00:02:47
Speaker
type of action. So I'm excited to dive into that. So for listeners who don't know who you are, do you mind sharing a little bit about what you do and what it is that brought you to the place that you feel like you have to do more of this?
00:03:01
Speaker
I grew up in Richmond. My dad was in import-export and my mom was a teacher, but I was really drawn to agriculture and ah did my undergraduate in crop science at the University of Guelph.
00:03:13
Speaker
Met my husband when I was studying there and we worked internationally. So I've lived and worked in Thailand, in India, in Jamaica, Bangladesh.
00:03:24
Speaker
We came back to Canada in the 90s. And from then, i started working in food security, in supporting local food systems. And recently, and i've I've just left this organization, i was with the Investment Agriculture Foundation for a few years as a project manager.
00:03:44
Speaker
And that's where I actually got to see how our public dollars, our tax dollars are used to to create programs that support farmers and food processors. So I'm back to working in food security again, but I've kind of, so I've come for full circle, but i've I've had a taste of a lot in the food system.
00:04:04
Speaker
And I also run my own organic farm. So my husband and I own Amara Farm, which is located in the Comox Valley.
Defining Food Security
00:04:11
Speaker
Now you're going to have to define food security because I feel like, you know, people like us throw this around quite a bit. It's sort of a very common catchphrase, buzzword to use. But I wonder if for the, you know, the everyday person out there who goes grocery shopping twice a week that, you know, is looking at their bank account, that is thinking about feeding their children. And then for those that struggle with those things, what does food security look like from your perspective?
00:04:40
Speaker
Well, you've really touched on like a really big part of that. It is the ability to access affordable, healthy food for you and your family at all times.
00:04:51
Speaker
And so that means that during winter, when we know prices generally go up for fresh food, and it means regardless of where you live in Canada as well. So basically food for all at all times.
00:05:04
Speaker
I've traveled in places in the world where the further you get away, from a city center, those food costs just go up and up and up and to the point where like fresh vegetables and fruit is basically an absolute luxury for so many people. And so that's so tricky. You know, in Canada, we have the technology now that should no longer be a thing, right? That you can, you don't even know, need land anymore to be able to produce fresh fruits and vegetables.
00:05:35
Speaker
But really, it looks like it's political will and support for for communities that, like you said, are far from our distribution systems and where the cost of fruits and vegetables is just through the roof. So we need to maintain maintain and ensure that all Canadians have access to healthy food.
Running Amara Farm and Community Initiatives
00:05:55
Speaker
And you have your own farm. I'm curious what you grow, produce, raise, nurture. do you Do you have an Instagram feed where you cuddle cows or goats or like Kevin Bacon play guitar for your animals?
00:06:08
Speaker
ah Not that I recall, but we have had some fun things like we were primarily a vegetable and fruit farm and now nuts. Hazelnuts are the newest crop. At one time, we were growing over 47 different fruits and vegetables.
00:06:23
Speaker
It was a lot. We ran ah a full CSA, community supported agriculture program from our farm that required a lot of diversity of products. And we've scaled back a little bit. Neil and I are in our mid fifty s So what we've now done is we are primarily focusing on our perennial fruits and vegetables and nuts, and we've leased out the vegetable side of the the farm to a young couple who are just getting their feet under them. And by next year, we fully see imagine that they're going to be going gangbusters on growing vegetables.
00:06:59
Speaker
So no sheep cuddling or fun things like that, but We did start at our farm, the Comox Valley Garlic Festival, and that has now emerged as its own thing, and that happens in August, so lots and lots of garlic.
00:07:16
Speaker
We still have lots of fun, beautiful things happening, just not a lot of furry creatures except for my two dogs. You know, I'll cuddle garlic. Yeah. I would do that. I would do that for you. I would sing to garlic. Yeah.
00:07:28
Speaker
stroking the garlic as it grows Yes. yeah Yes. i would I would make clothing out of it. i would i love i love garlic gas It's my favorite vegetable to grow. Yeah. it's Maybe sometimes to a fault, but i do love it. It's great that you guys grow it. And think festivals of any kind around agriculture can be a really wonderful way to gather a community.
00:07:50
Speaker
to celebrate the things that we grow and to celebrate the people that grow them.
Cooperatives and Farmer Support
00:07:55
Speaker
And that's really cool. I've been to your neck of the woods a few times. Well, many times, actually. do a lot of camping.
00:08:02
Speaker
I carry on past, go up north on the island, do a lot of camping up in that area, and I love it. So that's really cool. But when we think of these farmers, I mean, i' I've been around agriculture my whole life and my family had farms and ah co-ops were very, I'm not specifically talking about the store just yet, but like gatherings of farmers that, you know, sort of all contribute to one governing body that sort of gathers up produce, gathers up things and then redistributes them and sells them to a wholesale rate.
00:08:35
Speaker
These are not new. That's not a new thing. But I worry that it's actually becoming almost antiquated, and that we're seeing some of these co-ops really struggle to support farmers and everything's just getting more expensive. And the path to market seems to be breaking down at a time that we needed to work better than ever.
00:08:54
Speaker
What do you see on that side? I've had some time to study yeah cooperatives as well. you know i worked with Vancity on this about eight years ago, studying cooperate the cooperative movement in Italy.
00:09:06
Speaker
And we desperately need farmers to work together and access the the dollars for infrastructure that farmers really can't access on their own. you know i have started a couple of organizations.
00:09:22
Speaker
One is a cooperative that that works off of my farm. whereby we have about five farms now that are marketing collect collectively. like As much as I enjoy going to the farmer's market every Saturday, it's nice to have a day off sometimes on on a weekend and to be able to go camping during the summer months.
00:09:42
Speaker
And so... Marketing cooperatively allows farmers to take some time off during the summer months to share in the costs of tent and all of the infrastructure, coolers, trucks, wash stations.
00:09:56
Speaker
We have a system that we share a lot of our equipment because we've built it up over time. And we realize that new farmers are really struggling to be able to afford all of that infrastructure. So for us, it's almost like a farm incubator program that we have going on where farmers We're just asking farmers to concentrate on the growing.
00:10:19
Speaker
And then when it comes to the marketing, we'll take over and, you know, you get paid. And so, you know, that that's what I would love to see more of. I think one of the issues is that there seems to be within the North American culture, this desire to constantly get bigger and bigger.
00:10:39
Speaker
And I think that there is a point when you start to lose the democratic voice of of individual farmers when you get so big and, you know, you need management um and i'm I've got BC Tree Fruits in mind, right?
00:10:54
Speaker
You know, the demise of that cooperative, you know, over 400 members, where, you know, I think management and the membership, really, there was a big disconnect. So instead of constantly having to grow and grow, i mean, why not have a number of small cooperatives, regional cooperatives that meet the needs of of ah farmers?
00:11:15
Speaker
And then, you know, once you're established and stabilized, then you can consider whether or not you want to grow. But Growth for the sake of growing, I think, is is a really big issue that we have to consider that maybe it's just not appropriate for all types of of cooperatives or groups of farmers.
00:11:33
Speaker
But Absolutely. Hazelnut, that's a ah new crop for us in the Comox Valley. The province really put a big effort into encouraging farmers to plant hazelnuts by so subsidizing the cost a few years ago.
00:11:46
Speaker
So we now have like almost 20 acres of hazelnuts that are going to be coming into production here. And, you know, a dozen or so farmers who are all big trying to figure out how are they're going to sell this nut,
00:12:00
Speaker
That quite frankly needs to be shelled before there's a good market for it. And shellers are running anywhere between 30 and $40,000. That's a lot of money for an individual small farm, and but it makes way more sense if you are working collectively.
Importance and Risks for Small Farms
00:12:17
Speaker
So those are the types of like coming together of farmers that I'm really trying to encourage. That's so cool. Yeah. And it seems like at the food system side, everyone talks about scale and growth and doing it all faster and bigger and export markets and all these wonderful, you know, very GDP like conversations.
00:12:38
Speaker
But the reality is, is that you can only do this that type of stuff at a commercial or industrial level in so many places and spaces and with so much investment.
00:12:50
Speaker
When the small farmers go away, and that land turns into suburbs or just is abandoned, we lose ah piece of our humanity, don't you think? Oh, not just our humanity. i mean, i actually think of like food.
00:13:08
Speaker
i mean, i you literally are what you eat. You know, if you think about the vitamins, the minerals that you are getting from your food, that is coming from the soil.
00:13:20
Speaker
So, you know, to be able to eat something that is grown here from this place, I'm literally eating the minerals of the soil from here.
00:13:31
Speaker
I'm becoming, you know, more connected with this land when I eat food from this land. So it is, it's also a very physical connection as well as spiritual and emotional. yeah.
00:13:44
Speaker
All kinds of important connections are lost when you no longer know where your food is coming from. You win the Poetic Answer of the Year Award, by the way. Well done.
00:13:57
Speaker
Let's stay with the nutrient side. Let's stay with the soil side. When we look at things like organic and regenerative organic or regenerative farming or all these wonderful words that get used to describe the, hopefully the thoughtful and careful, you know, use of,
00:14:15
Speaker
chemicals or tools or supplements or whatever it is. When you look at and look at small farmers, small scale farmers, do you feel like that element is easier for them to embrace or it's infinitely harder for them to embrace?
Ecological Practices vs. Economic Viability
00:14:31
Speaker
Oh, that's a really good question. It's not really one that I've thought about at scale. What I do know is that organic farmers, you know, really do concentrate on the health of their soil. And in order for them to you know continue farming ecologically, healthy soil means plants that are less susceptible to disease and to pests. It all starts with the soil.
00:14:57
Speaker
But I know there are also practices within the organic sector, especially in the vegetable side, rototilling, we do disturb soil in order to plant things like carrots that need a really fine seed bed.
00:15:12
Speaker
And I've seen some farms try and implement regenerative vegetable practices, and it requires about five times more labor.
00:15:24
Speaker
And that's just where I'm like, financially, this just does not make sense. I know ecologically it does, but I don't know anybody who would be able to afford this carrot if I farmed this way.
00:15:36
Speaker
Right. So I know like on a commercial scale and, you know, small scale farmers still need to make a profit in order or at least have their theyre costs paid for.
00:15:47
Speaker
So few farmers pay themselves, by the way, when they you know put together their pricing. So when I say a profit, that's basically what farmers are paying themselves. In order for them to do that, they really have to look at their labor costs. And for farming, it is all about labor, quite frankly.
00:16:05
Speaker
And how you, if in order to keep food affordable and accessible to people, there are some compromises that have to be made with the technology that we have right now.
00:16:17
Speaker
You know, I don't spray all of my weeds with Roundup in order to not rototill. So here are some, you know, checks and balances. I'm i'm not sure um at what scale fully regenerative like so that there's no soil disturbance where your cover crop, your soil is protected all the time.
00:16:40
Speaker
Right now I can see that working on the large scale on grain farms, for example, or, you know, with ah with beef production, with ah rotational grazing, but with vegetables, it seems there's there's a really big tension there about how to produce in a way that is still practical.
00:17:01
Speaker
It is a balance for sure. When we talk about scale, let's also talk about the size of the produce that's being made. I was at the grocery grocery store two days ago and I went to go get some sweet potatoes and they were the size of a football, each of them.
00:17:19
Speaker
And next to them were these carrots that didn't really, they looked like something from a like from an animated film. They were just gigantic. Now, maybe that's a breed that I'm not aware of. But anyway, looked weird. looked like like from some dinosaur or movie or something.
00:17:34
Speaker
Prehistoric is how it looked. What is, you know, the consumer sentiment out there is they want big and they want shiny. They want their tomatoes to have a gloss on them. what What are we going to do about the food system when everything is sort of made to look, you know, very unrealistic?
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah. And here's where I was hoping, you know, a few years ago, Loblaws made the commitment to selling like irregular vegetables and like these inglorious vegetables.
00:18:04
Speaker
weirdly shaped stuff that would normally get either composted or, you know, maybe moved into the food processing side that people would be willing to, to purchase, you know, food, vegetables and fruit that may maybe cosmetically don't look, you know, like these, you know, fantastical vegetables you've seen.
00:18:26
Speaker
And I guess I have a little bit of an immunity um at the farmer's market because I am finding people are attracted the flavor of produce more so. And and it it can have, you know, because we're organic. Yes, we'll have some leaves that have small holes in them sometimes.
00:18:45
Speaker
And I think my customers are very aware that if it's too perfect looking, something has gone wrong. like That is not a food product that is part of the ecology or any you know is there's there's something that's been sprayed or that's been pumped into the vegetable to make it look that way. that way so I, yeah, I really hope that um people don't lose that aspect of like, what does food, what does this taste like?
Consumer Expectations and Farming Impact
00:19:17
Speaker
And choose flavor. And because with flavor comes nutrition, you know, as we know, these things that we're picking up within carrots, for example, I'll use carrots because that is the one vegetable that people can really taste the difference between a locally grown, organically raised,
00:19:37
Speaker
carrot versus like a more industrially raised one. The flavor just really stands out. And that's what's something that our customers are really looking for.
00:19:47
Speaker
But I know not everybody shops at the farmer's market. And so i think we need to do a better job at really pushing the things that matter, for which is not size, quite frankly. Yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker
Many years ago, I was in food service, and remember thinking so many times back then, when you know you you glean from the people that you are learning from and that are above you in the hierarchy of a kitchen.
00:20:14
Speaker
And the chefs I worked with, many of them, especially a couple of them, you know, if they saw really shiny vegetables, they were angry because they're like, they've done something to this. Like, this isn't going to be good. You know, if the garlic, ah not garlic, sorry, the ginger, if it just looked a little too pretty, they would just be, they're like, nope, send it back.
00:20:33
Speaker
Whereas at the grocery store, it's like, almost like it's merchandised, right? Like it's on display. like Well, we know, right? That, well, more so in the EU, but I think here too, you know, if the curve, well, I'm going to use long English cucumbers, for example. Like if there is any sort of curve in a cucumber, that's rejected because we're so used to these straight, pencil straight cucumbers.
00:21:03
Speaker
And they don't grow like that naturally. a few do, but often they they do curve and there's absolutely nothing wrong with the flavor, but it's so sad that we constantly are rejecting fruits and vegetables just for the way that they look.
00:21:20
Speaker
I agree. Well, I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for the time. i have a feeling we could probably talk for hours on these things. So very cool. And I'm glad we're connected and i appreciate all of the good things that you're doing and that you're doing it on your farm.
00:21:35
Speaker
Thank you. It's my
00:21:39
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this conversation. i hope it inspired you to take a closer look at the producers and the growers close to you and to support them with your wallet, filling your fridge and your cupboards with the best your community has to offer.
00:21:51
Speaker
That's it for me. I'm Corwin Hebert. I'll see you in the future.